Feminine Archetypes

By Courtney Tiffany

In Feminine Archetypes, two-time author and modern Priestess Courtney Tiffany weaves together a brand-new way of approaching archetypes, goddess spirituality, and self-exploration. Through archetypal embodiment, she teaches us to awaken to the various threads of Shakti by exploring thirteen archetypes of the Divine Feminine.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Aligned Life Publishing
• Release date: May 25, 2021
• ISBN: 9781734920956

Book preview

Introduction

Carl Jung first explored archetypes back in the 1940s, recognizing that there were common universal themes within the collective unconscious. Jungian psychology explored the themes we all are familiar with in society, such as the maiden, the hero, the caregiver, and the magician. I first began exploring the idea of these archetypes at the beginning of my spiritual journey in 2016 to better understand myself. Then, I came across Jean Shinoda Bolen’s book Goddesses in Everywoman , where she examined the archetypes of the Greek goddesses from her viewpoint as a Jungian psychoanalyst. After that, I dove deep into mythology, goddesses, and the energy of the Divine Feminine. Common archetypes within the goddesses started appearing to me, far from those of Carl Jung, and I chose to explore them within myself. These are the feminine archetypes we will be exploring in this book. It was these very archetypes that allowed me to put the pieces of myself back together and reclaim my sovereignty, esoteric gifts, and feminine power.

Now, I am no psychoanalyst, and these are not Jung’s archetypes. I am simply a woman on a lifelong mission to learn, grow, and find my personal truth, constantly realigning and course-correcting who I am at my core. What I uncovered was that there are powerful feminine archetypes available to each and every one of us, and we can learn to energetically tap into them to reconnect with parts of ourselves that might have otherwise been dormant or hidden, parts we’ve forgotten or suppressed as children because we were told to behave a certain way. Or better yet, they are the parts of ourselves we’ve yet to discover, waiting for us to explore and awaken to them. What you’ll find in these pages is a spiritual exploration of the energy of the Divine Feminine and yourself.

I found the archetypes at the beginning of my motherhood. I had two babies in the span of thirteen months and found myself knee-deep in diapers, feedings, and nap schedules, completely lost in my new identity. I had thrown myself full force into my new role as a mother and lost all the other parts of who I was. I found myself in a bit of an identity crisis. By exploring and reading the different archetypes of the goddesses, I was able to reclaim those lost parts of myself as well as find new ones. I was able to work with and heal the Warrior I knew was within me. I was able to tap into the Priestess, my mystical side, and integrate much-needed spiritual practices into my daily life that had been missing for over a decade. I learned how to accept the Dark Goddess, the full force of my being, and I no longer feel ashamed for being emotional.

The world we grew up in is no longer; it’s shifting, and there is a call for change. We are answering a call to live closer to our truth, to be authentic. Transparency is more valued than it’s ever been. However, I don’t believe anything can change until we truly understand ourselves on a deep, intimate level, until we are fully honest about who we are. We must come face-to-face with our truth, our traumas, wounds, and shadows and heal them on a deep soul level. I don’t believe we can create a world based on human compassion, equality, and kindness unless we treat ourselves that way first. Heal yourself, and you can then help heal the world.

I believe by connecting with our true essence, finding and speaking our truth, and awakening to our greatest potential, we can heal ourselves, which will then create a ripple effect of healing for our planet. The ways of the power-hungry patriarchy are crumbling, and it’s time to bring the feminine back into balance with the masculine. To find this recalibration, we must bring forward the suppressed and hidden archetypes of the Divine Feminine that were previously shunned, cast aside, and tainted, the archetypes that allow women to awaken to their greatest potential. I like to view archetypes as threads, or single strands, that when woven together form the fabric of our being, because we are more than just one thing. We are not just Mothers or Lovers. We can also be Priestesses and Warriors. We are multidimensional beings comprised of several different threads that allow us to be both soft and strong, nurturing and steadfast, wild and calm.

It is time society welcomes back and honors the wisdom of the Crone and accepts the ways of the Witch. It’s time we respect the transformative shadows revealed with the Dark Goddess. It’s time we become the Wild Woman, liberated and unafraid of our emotions and natural states of living.

This book is meant to help you explore these threads inside of yourself and connect with these archetypes on an energetic soul level. It is meant to help you awaken to the truth of who you are. While there are hundreds of archetypes to choose from, we will be focusing on thirteen, the sacred number of the goddess. With each archetype, you will find there are different goddesses that represent it. You can use this information how you see fit.

If you are familiar with the ways of goddess devotion and feel called to work with a specific deity to open up to the archetypes, please do so; however, it’s not required. The stories of the goddesses can help bring a better understanding to the archetypes, which are energetic currents you already know are there, pulsating through you. It’s a matter of opening yourself up to them and tuning into the right frequency. This requires you to turn off your mind and drop into your body. Feminine work requires embodiment and a connection to your body wisdom in order to be felt, heard, and awakened. Feminine embodiment is not something you can do with a logical, rational mind. In other words, the way you were taught to learn and examine things must go out the window when it comes to the feminine. This process requires faith, trust, and the ability to surrender to the unknown. It requires movement. Just as the tides of the ocean and phases of the moon are both in constant motion, so is the Divine Feminine.

As we discuss the feminine archetypes throughout this book, you will find a ritual to help you connect to the archetype within. These rituals can be used as a guide. Discern for yourself what feels right and ask yourself how best to connect with the archetype. I’ve kept these rituals as simple as possible so everyone can have the ability to connect through them. I don’t believe you need things to connect with the Divine, so you won’t find a long list of required herbs, crystals, or material items. These items don’t make you spiritual, and you don’t need them to help you connect with your divinity. All you need is patience, trust, and an awareness of your mind and body. Some rituals do require pen and paper or a blanket, which are all common household items. The rituals explore the idea of archetypal embodiment and use body movement and wisdom to tap into specific archetypal threads within yourself, providing a way for you to connect with the Divine Feminine.

Consider for a moment the many hats you wear in a day. You go to work in the morning and enter the realm of the boss or employee. When you come home, you are the Mother, checking in on and feeding your children, and at night under the comfort of darkness, you embody the Lover. In each scenario, you behave a little differently. You speak differently to your children or family members than you do to your girlfriends, yet both archetypes are still you. You’ll notice as you perform these rituals that they will each feel differently inside your body. With the Warrior, you might have more confidence, carrying yourself a little taller than when you are the fun-loving Maiden. Pay attention to these different energies. Once you are able to pick up on how they feel in your body, you’ll be able to call on them in times of need. There is a time and place for each archetype, so by working with their energies through embodiment, we can quickly and easily come back to them.

Each archetype has something different to teach us. Each is a key that unlocks a door to a part of ourselves, the powerful, pure, divine essence of our souls. Each archetype holds gifts and mysteries that are waiting to be explored. By tugging on these threads of our being, we allow ourselves to reclaim our true feminine nature. We learn to remember the beauty of who we are, and we are given the tools to stand firm in our truth.

It’s important to know that you can access any of these archetypes at any point in your life. Age is irrelevant. You might feel called to one or two archetypes while reading this book, but perhaps in a year or so, you might feel called to explore others. We are all constantly growing and evolving, so it makes sense that our prominent archetypes will change as well. We will also find archetypes within us that we never thought we would relate to, but I promise you, they are there. They are just waiting for you to start exploring.

In this book, you will also find reflection questions for each archetype that are meant to help you think about how you embody it. Sit with these questions, feel into them, use them as journaling prompts. To open up to the feminine archetypes within yourself, you must be willing to do the work. You must be willing to feel into your body and be honest with yourself.

The ways of the Divine Feminine are rising in power, and with this also comes wounds around some of the archetypes. They might be generational or ancestral, but it’s up to you to decide what needs your attention and what is blocking you from moving forward. The wounds we will be discussing are around the Mother and Witch archetypes, and we will dive into how best to heal and grow from them. A lot of these wounds are often unconscious until we start exploring them within our psyches. You might meet these topics with some resistance, or you might question and explore why these wounds developed in the first place. Give yourself some